I sort of knew what this game was about before starting, having watched 10 minutes of a lets play so started ready to take notes and delve into the story. However the lack of an intro, tutorial and interface did take me back for a minute until I figured out what to do. you really are dumped straight into the game and have to find your own way. The game is short, I 'finished' in around 5 hours but it was very immersive and the time flew past. Curious, I went to a websight later to find a list of search terms to finish up all the files stored, I figure that may take another hour or two. Its not necessary but there are little snippets of info I would like to find out. Like a nerd I took copious notes, even starting a fresh note pad for the game. It wasnt until near endgame before I realized that it wasnt really necessary. There is no end game for you to plug into your findings of what happened, it just kind of ends when you feel like it. Brief note taking of verbs is all that is needed to keep track of your searches. There is a neat database icon that shows how many of the films you uncover and the game allows you to come back and continue searching words until you unlock them all. The story was very interesting, the actress was really good. There was one clip, I wont say what it was, but I got goosepimples and a 'what the heck' moment. I have played many games, indeed 5star AAA games that did not hold my interest like this game did. I do feel for players going into the game thinking its a standard action game, or even an adventure game. They may be disappointed, its more like a Tale Tell game with much more interaction on your part. I liked it alot and look forward to more from the dev
I have tried to enjoy this adventure game, the landscapes and environments are inviting and look great graphically but the interface, obscure puzzles and captioning ruin the immersion of the game. It would have been better to skip the AI of the rover and let the player click on objects themselves, reading flavor text etc without the annoying voice acting and mandatory captioning to take over during exploration. There is no way to turn it off so you have to listen to the AI both in Julia the onboard computer and the robot rover talk the flavor texts. Game mechanics also get in the way of pleasurable exploration as I was constantly trying to find my way to 'inventory', mandatory readouts of objects scanned, traveling to planets, none of which is easily used. Game grinds to a stop while I fumble around trying to find that obscure report needed or plant id or object. The game itself plays out more like a test of what you explore and you have to do weird mini games where you story board the plot in minutae for no purpose at all that I could find out. Puzzles themselves range from find objects to complete actions to such obscure puzzles a walk thru is mandatory and even with the exact answer often the puzzles dont solve due to some minute color change or name insertion (where there are multiple identical names to choose from). There is a hint function for each puzzle, which lays out a bare bones description of what is to be done, but once again the instructions are extremely vague to be worthless. Voice acting is subpar, you wonder why such intelligent and skilled astronauts could be so unprofessional, gossipy and lack any mannerisms due to scientists. Julia herself is pretty worthless as a ship computer, unable to even turn off power and release fire fighting capabilities on her own. All in all, its a bit idiotic. The story is intriguing and flying to planets interesting. I just wish they let us do that and skip the dumb interfaces.
I was so impressed by this game, from the haunting grotesque environments to the excellently acted voice overs. The slow reveal of the story was perfect, most captured via 'found' diaries in such a way that was not obtrusive. I found myself bonding to the main character as he worked his way thru the horror with only a lonely contact on a radio for company. There were many times I would balk at proceeding as it just was such a vile landscape. Gameplay was pretty seamless, point and click. There is no tutorial so it took some fumbling around to find the inventory, menu etc. In fact, the save game function was so obscure that I played halfway thru the game before finding the save slots, this was not too severe as the game auto saves thruout, but I find it always useful to have hard saves of my own choosing, which I used a few times in the game when the auto save was not beneficial. Complaints: hard to read small text, very dark atmospheres to the point where I could not find the character on the screen. Small screen size, objects and items were hard to find. Unskippable dialogue trees with timed actions, death would start the process all over again and one scene had at least a minute of dialogue before you could attempt again, also irritating while exploring , having to wait out repeated text/dialogue. Those complaints fade when compared to such an immersive tale. I was totally involved in it. I loved the style of the inventory, loved the spinning helix used for the loading icon, loved all the pdas personally adorned specific for each user. The art work was pretty good, you felt like it was a real working spaceship. The soundscape for this game was spectacular, from fading music as you left a room, to hollow clangs, bumps, grinds, screams, drips, mechanical beeps, talking robotics and advertisements. Reminiscent of System Shock. probably the best game i have played in 2016, will replay again to find clues to the shocking ending. well done devs!
There is much to like about this point and click puzzle game, it has an immersive environment, the puzzles range from easy to ' need a walkthrough ' difficult, the story is interesting as well. I found myself enjoying this game for a few hours until all the small aggravations kicked in to ruin my experience. Annoyances are mainly with the odd radial wheel interface they use, often times you misclick the radial wheel that opens on a hotspot with choices of actions. There is a lag behind the mouse pointer, so you have to wait till the wheel swings into the wanted action and many a time that is missed. The buzz kill of the whole game was an idiotic mine sweeper game at the very end with many buttons to click. If you missclicked once (easy to do with the bad click interface and the transparent buttons) you had to start over again through a lengthy animation scene. This puzzle ruined the tempo of the game and in frustration I looked up a video walkthrough for the finish and I was relieved that I stopped playing. The game ended immediately after leaving unresolved questions and a cliff hanger ending. Very unsatisfying. The graphics were basic, with some bad texturing but I didnt mind that. The music was a repetitive loop, very basic and needed work. There is a very short tutorial on how to begin the game but you are on your own from then on. Lots of fumbling around till you get the hang of it. the look action usually pulled up lame text such as ' this lock has a combination' or 'try to open the door'. duh There is a hint button, which can lead to spoilers if you arent careful. It flashes when a hint is available and like a dope I clicked it a few times and got spoilers without meaning to. Overall, the last puzzle ruined the game for me what had previously been an mildly amusing puzzle game. Gameplay is about 6 hrs, add in a few hours more if you dont use a walk thru for the mayan number puzzle which was very difficult. Buy it on sale
Let me first say this game is charming, the artwork is original and lovingly done and there are many unique scenes and environments to explore. The music is unobtrusive and goes well with the game but may be too banal to listen to by itself. The characters are quirky, bizarre, horrifying, cute, adorable and disgusting, sometimes all at once. the story is very intriguing and at times too obscure to enjoy. Its like reliving Twin Peaks with many unanswered questions, especially the ending. If you like clear cut conclusions then you may find this one unsatisfying. I bet you will hit the forums to see what others thought had happened, I know I did. Game mechanics were simple mainly, point and click, with dialogue trees, some inventory combination. To me this is where the game fails, the dialogue choices had no impact at all and seemed rather to be used to fluff out the game length and give an illusion of player activity thru the story telling aspects. You also could not skip the dialogues and this was maddening when you were attempting to solve puzzles and inadvertently clicked on a char that had lengthy conversations. Using inventory was also annoying as you had to open inventory, select the item then apply it to the item in the room, every.single.time. In a point/click puzzle game this was beyond belief, where using different inventory combinations on hotspots are normal. worst aspect of this game was the save game mechanic, or lack of one. It uses one save feature, where you stop the game is where you pick up. Works great in theory except for the fact that game saves are often corrupted. This happened to me, during play i accidentally pressed some random key on my keyboard and found that the game had skipped an entire chapter and gone to the next. My only recourse was to start over. I have no idea why someone would design a game to use this , it stunk really and ruined my experience. Forums were full of people with corrupted saves, inexcusable.
What can I say, huge fan of the series. Witcher 2 was my go to game, loved it and got lost in the story and exploration. Preordered W3 and waited for the perfect time to play it, well after release date as I wanted to give it my whole attention and love. 12 hours of gameplay later I am finding myself looking for another game. Why? Its just not that fun. Fantastic gorgeous landscapes, interactive open world exploration, detailed and unique characters and NPCS, perfectly animated monsters, weather, plants, trees.......................... and I just dont want to play anymore. Why again? hideous controls. If I have to spend another 5 seconds repositioning myself to pick up herbs or loot I will scream. If I have another baffling combat battle where weird things happen seemingly of their own volition I will throw my mouse. Even giving up and just spamming fast attack is a hot mess with camera views and feeling out of control of my characters actions. If I have to kick Roach again to get him to canter and watch him slog off to the left instead I will have a tantrum. If I run past my target again and stop 3 ft past then I will sigh in desperation. If I have one more day of dim shadowy landscapes at high noon I will get a headache. If I have to remember to toggle on walk before I can loot my fallen foes more easily I will just walk away. If I have one more view blocked by geralts arse I will rage. If i hear another villager spit on me I will flip them the bird. hours searching and loading mods to fix my complaints. No new game needs this much work in order to have the basics: such as a zoomable camera view to players preference, player control of inventory, easy to use spells and bombs, easy to control main character. As for the landscape.... oh what a landscape. At the highest settings it pops, it sways, it sighs, gurgles and cracks. Gorgeous. I get lost in exploring the wilds until i stop to pick a flower or combat happens. so disappointed
Quite simply one of the best RPGs ever made; epic fantasy plot, wonderful characters you grow to love, many hours of game play (easy to play 100 hours), and a world you will miss when you are finally done. Graphics aged a bit (obviously), but still passable, and a very good soundtrack. The best DA game by some margin. Bioware at their best. Absolute bargain with all the extra content for this price.
This has to be right up there in my top five games list due to the intriguing, bizarre story telling and original detailed artwork. The level of immersion in this game is fantastic. It holds up even by todays standards. I have not seen many games that approach the level of creativity that the dev created for this story. The voice work is rather good but you can fast forward thru the spoken and just read the text. The puzzles are not just random puzzles plopped down into the game to make it longer, but make sense for the scene of the time. Some of the puzzles are quite difficult, some easy. There is a little backtracking to find parts as well but nothing like its modern adventure gaming counterparts. Its a rather unforgiving game, no puzzle tips, no hint buttons, no sparkles or arrows to show actionable spots, no quick travel. On my win7 64bit computer the game did crash numerous times, but mainly around animation scenes, so it is wise to save often to avoid having to backtrack or redo complicated puzzles. The main faults for me was how actionable spots/items blended into the scenery and without a walkthru there was no way I would have found them. Which leads to my other complaint, no fast travel, when you are stuck like i was in several places of the game, you have to back track and pixel hunt for some item or spot and its just dreary due to the slow walking pace of the characters and maze like maps. There is some clunkiness with certain action scenes regarding fight sequences against monsters as well. all faults are forgiving due the complete charm of the game, from the eerie menu interface voiced by an etheral girl, to the imaginitive depiction of madness, to the incredible artwork and easy inventory access. a real joy to play
This has to be the best game I have played in years. Yes.. years. The game play is so incredibly immersive that many times I yell out when surprised by a zombie, scaring my spouse and pets in the house. lol Graphics are pretty decent, pixelated yet somehow very detailed. All the buildings are different, the zombie bodies varied enough that you cant see any duplicates. Everything in the landscape is interactable. chop trees, raid fridges, cook food, burn down the house, climb fences, escape out a window. The sound track is so good, music fades out and you are left with only the wind, the occasional barking dog trailing off into screams, the lone shock of a shotgun in the distance. It is incredibly immersive. Gameplay hooks you from the beginning, at first its confusing on how to handle combat, or crafting. It took me many game days and tries to finally finish my barricading of my fort. Liberal use of wikis is recommended as some details are not apparent, such as handles for doors can only be gotten via destroying a door rather than scavenging. The one thing you will not be is a Rambo warrior king in this game, combat is risky with even the slightest scratch giving a chance to give fatal zombie virus with no cure. even using bandages made from dead zombie clothes on a cut can impart the virus. You end up stealthing, creeping and avoiding contact and running like hell when you do. Finally finishing barricading is such an event, celebrated with sound sleep for the 1 st time in weeks as you shelter in a safe house. Throughout all is the game clock, ticking down to winter and the loss of power when food starts to rot rapidly and you are left with dry goods and your own wits to survive. What can I say, I have been playing straight for days and havent even begun to experience the full game. brilliant, immersive, terrifying at times
